bleudauvergne

It began when I was a kid, that first cathartic food moment. We'd been apple picking, and I bit into an apple fresh from the tree. I was suddenly flooded with all kinds of signals - the flavor, the memories, the sheer joy of a Cortland apple on a blustery Upstate New York autumn day - I suddenly felt like a real human being with a history! Very complex emotions came at me fast, something special happened that I cannot quite define. I wasn't sure if the kids around me were feeling it too. It continued when I began to travel. My discovery of a culture was intertwined with a deep investigation into the cuisine and its history. First Germany, then Turkey, then a more profound investigation lasting several years in China, now after 4 years in France, the more I learn, the more there is to learn. It's a neverending source of joyous inspiration for me, in fact, one of the most important things in my life, I might add. It occurred to me that some people might conclude that I am obscessed. It's my passion, I admit. And it has been for as long as I can remember. But a problem? Has anyone ever insinuated that your love of all things food related is a problem? Family? Friends?

Wow what a wonderful story.

When you said this I thought of a recipe for pot au feu from a cookbook dating back to the 1920s. Gives s new meaning to "pot au feu". click for images It does mention in the recipe associated to the pot au feu image that "dans les grandes cuisines la cuisson du pot au feu s'opere au gaz". So Boris, do you have a rotisserie and a grill attached?

Last year we had a house guest and walked until our feet had blisters. We began the evening listening to jazz at a cafe, and then saw everything from string quartets outside the firehouse, cuban music at place Guichard, to the most amazing white girls doing african dancing to live drums on the ponts de la croix rousse, to a carnival atmosphere that included a Santana-esque band outside the mayor of the 4eme. I recall that someone was playing a free form abstract electric guitar and flashing random photo slides of body parts out his window, and we stopped and stared at that for a long time. This year we were rather civilized and only went to a chamber music concert. But we heard the festivities all night long from home. I found out that we live in the punk rock neighborhood. There was lots of anguished screaming to garage bands, it was refreshing. I snuck a picture at the concert. Too civilized. Food:

Ok the photos of the cheese and soup are now added to the post above. NeroW, Bux mentions that to make sure that you absolutely make the most of every last drop. Make sure you remember never to leave off those last .0014023 ounces, that's the best part. Tonight I picked up a steak from the butcher, and he said I had a tired air about me. Thanks, M. Thermoz, real kind of you, you're not looking too hot yourself. (I actually forgot my keys this morning and had a long day, and missed the bus, and was wandering around the neighborhood waiting for my husband to come home...) He said he was worried about me, and asked if I'm not eating enought meat. It is true, in fact, I have not been in to see you in these past couple of weeks as often as I used to, that's true. That's ok, he said. You and your husband eat this tonight, and tomorrow you'll be as good as new. I believe him.

Boris has got me in the mood to go to the flea market this weekend - So I can taste the sausages they sell in the second outside asile from the warehouse near the bar.

Things are going fine on the plan, I’ve been faithfully making sandwiches and having them at lunch. This week I am enjoying some whole rye bread (pain de siegle), which is a little harder in texture and has a specific taste, and it does not absorb liquid as readily as the wheat bread. Sandwiches these past couple of days have been tomato/wild mushroom coulis, and tomato/cervelle de canut. I am keeping up the fruit habit, and unfortunately my big plan of cooking for lunch the next day has been somewhat hampered by social activities in the evenings as of late, one of which was the fete de musique, which we celebrated by going to a chamber music concert. We have added three new cheeses to the cheese plate, an Epoisse, a Selles sur Cher, and a lovely little cheese macerated in marc and wrapped in some kind of leaf, it's called Cavet Feuille, produced in the Drome, in a town called Dieulefit. In fact Loic and I have been to that town, they have a lot of potters, and we stopped in the town to buy some mugs there. Can't say anything else about the cheese though, except it tastes good. When purchasing the Epoisse (which is the orange one), the fromager was inclined to give me a rather young one. I did the right thing to refuse it and ask for one a little older, one that is “bien fait”. We like our soft cheeses to be consistent and soft right through the middle, although some people like to see their centers not quite “fondant”. We feel that the flavor benefits from a longer time in the right conditions. The fromagier is the best place for this to take place, because their cases are specifically calibrated to allow for the perfect ripening of cheese. The refrigerator is rather cold for cheese ripening, while room temp is too warm. The Selles sur Cher (the grey one - covered with ash) is also just perfect. It was the first time I have chosen this Cavet Feuille wrapped in leaves, and I cannot find it in my guides, but I will do some research on the producer and post it. It is delicious in small quantity. The marc flavor is distinct but not overpowering. Here's a sample of the average serving of cheese - At the market on Sunday, we snagged a couple of kilos of white asparagus for 2 €. I knew immediately that it would not all be edible, because they were clearing it out, and it was not at the height of freshness. At the end of washing, peeling, cutting off any hard parts, and examining closely, I’d say I had a kilo to work with. I made a crème of asparagus soup for dinner last night. Lucy's Cream of Asparagus Soup 2 t. goose fat 1 onion, roughly chopped 100 grams wild mushrooms 1 kilo aspsaragus tips and high stems 1 pint of whole milk ½ t. white pepper ½ t. finely ground sea salt ½ t. nutmeg a few sprigs of fresh tarragon 1 t. creole spice mix (click for link to post with recipe for this mix) In a soup pot, melt the fat and sauté the onion, not browning, over medium heat for 5 minutes or until soft. Add the mushrooms and cook over higher heat until they begin to loose their juice, reduce the heat and simmer until the juice is almost gone. Add the asparagus, which has been carefully washed, and chopped into 1 inch lengths, and slowly cook for 15 minutes until it begins to soften. Cover the asparagus with milk, cover the soup pot, and slowly simmer for 35 minutes. At the end of the 35 minutes, season and puree the soup. Adjust seasoning (this was when I added the 1 t. of creole mix to add some complexity - it was not detectable in the overall end flavor, meaning it did not interfere or compete in any way with the asparagus, but it did subtly enhance the flavor of the soup). Serve immediately. I had planned to enrich the soup with egg yolks at the end, but it didn't need it.

Dear Boris, it's such a lovely blog so far. I notice that you mention the local cheeses often, i.e. cooked mountain cheeses, emmenthal, gruyere. I would love to learn more about your local cheeses. I usually have cantal, gruyere, compte, and a variety of tommes available from vendors who come down from the mountains on weekends at the market, and aside from the distinct differences in taste of the winter/summer varieties of beaufort and the likes, I don't really know how to judge a good mountain cheese. How do you go about choosing? Are there two or three cheeses that you automatically buy if you see them, because you know they're good? Do you sometimes have the chance to taste the cheeses before you buy them?

does this mean it is like ricotta? am ignorant entirely and looking for assistance! Fromage blanc faiselle is like a cross between cottage cheese and yougurt. It's very light. I doubt you would be able to use it in the same way in cooking as ricotta because it's much less substantial.

Boris, I'm so sorry Switzerland lost the game. No, really. Really sorry about that. Your banista and root looks just amazing. Can you tell me what that thing is that the food is resting on? Is that a cook top? OK! I'm up for an adventure! Tschuss, Lucy

I'm not sure that's true. It's entirely possible that there are people who say they'll never "get it" who don't want to take the time to practice and learn. I believe that the eye is something that always can be refined, that we'll never quit learning. I have a friend who is a rather (well, very) established photographer. In addition to a lot of press and documentary work, she does b&w portraits of the stars. Her mantra is two words - "detached involvement". Detached in that she can step back and work on the technical aspects of what she's doing with intense deliberation within a very short time frame, and involved, because she gives, or better, abandons herself completely to every single one of her shots. I can see a photo that she's done and tell it's hers right away. She can take a photo of a parking meter and I can say - yep, she did that. The pack rat in me has difficulty doing that. Tana, bon courage in mastering the buttons and dials! edited to delete repetition and boring subject matter

Hot, crisp on the outside, with mustard sauce and frites.

I'm so sorry that the events from the festival, and the music set you off on a bad foot with the restaurant. It seems that this was a major element of your dissatisfaction. It should be noted that it was not just up the river on the island that was a cacophany of music, but also the entire Lyonnais region, as last night's annual music festival took place. Public transport outside of the metro system was stopped and much of the cities main thoroughfares were blocked, thus resulting in traffic jams everywhere. Loud music is the custom in Lyon one night a year, and unfortunately you had reservations for dinner with high hopes for a flawless experience on that very night. Even inside our home in Lyon, which has 2 foot thick stone walls and normally quite tranquil, the music was heard until 2 or three in the morning. It's only one day a year, unfortunately you expected silence and that would have been impossible anywhere. I doubt that the restaurant could have done anything to stop it.

Hi Boris, It's so wonderful to see that you are blogging! The Etivaz that you picked up in Gruyere sounds very good, reading the link. I have never noticed this kind of Gruyere but will keep an eye out for it. So it began with 76 families in 1930. How many producers are there now, do you know? We are not far from you. It's raining here too. Do you live on the lake?

I think it was your regular super market charcoal, Bux. They don't pack it into briquets here like they do back home.

Pim, I can honestly say that enjoying this bottle has been a real pleasure so far, because I'm finding that the taste of the wine can actually improve over the days that we stretch it out. Not only that, but tasting it at least three times, on three different nights, allows me to put some thought into what stays with me and what strikes me as truly memorable about it, not just thoughts from one evening with friends or a special occaision when we were served something really good. I'm not sure if it's because my mind is evolving over the days - that I'm remembering and anticipating what struck me from the night before and then it suprising me again with the complexity. It could be an indication of my short attention span, it could be the different foods. We've started by choosing some wines that have a lot of personality, mainly because I consider them to be a precious reward. I knew that the wine was good, but it wasn't until we went to the cafe and had lunch last week that I realized how my taste is being spoiled now. We had a little talk about that last night, as a matter of fact. We are going to continue sampling the best we can afford, and also stick with 10cl per evening, unless it's a special night or we have guests of course. As for the age of these wines (the Cote du Rhones), when we arrived here in 2000 we started sampling and buying from the vignerons at the independent vigneron that comes here to Lyon every October. Now we are getting ready to open some of the bottles. But we're in no big hurry either to bring them up from the cave. What we have paid for at the caviste for the last couple of bottles (The St. Joseph and the Cote Roti) is between 20 and 30 each in these past few weeks. I'm not sure what the price would be in a restaurant... But we should not be fooled by the price - when we ate at Gourmet de Seze a few weeks ago and took the sommelier's pairings, we were delighted with what we had (and the care that was taken in serving them at just the right temperature and the explanations, etc. from the sommelier) - I was convinced that these were very expensive wines - and my husband did some searching and found the caviste in town that provides them to the restaurant, he also sells to the public - all of the wines went for between 7 and 15 euros, retail, which was a real eye opener. Up to now I have been talking a lot to Mr. Langlet, our local caviste, and he's been offering suggestions. If M. Langlet says try this for 8 euros, I'll do it. We've started local, and I think next week I might venture to Bordeaux, St. Emillion, something like that. Edit to change a thought about ordering in restaurants - M. Pierre of my favorite bouchon explained that many restaurants make all of their their money from the wine they serve on tap, (and they serve a whole lot of it) and that the really delectable items on his list are sold at nearly no markup - he does this he says to allow people who really love good wine the chance to order it with their meal at his place.

I can't sleep this food looks so good. Mongo, you are just wonderful. Thank you ever so much.

Hey y'all. I have been hesitating jumping in because I'm a photo spatchcocker myself, and I don't think much about rules and regulations, but it's a nice idea to share ideas. Heidihi, I think that your photos are just wonderful. Your market shots look almost as if they have been composed in the studio! I think the best one of your market shots is the one with the different kinds of rice. They are great! I am certainly not a professional at all. And the photos I take are all completely 100% records, I do very little to compose or arrange, just snapshots. My goal in many photos is to convey information about a place. One thing I always try to do, when out shooting at the markets, is to capture signs of life and activity along with the photos - not be afraid to let other things bleed into the shots. This can be conveyed by objects that hint at the context of the photo, for example, if I'm shooting at a market, for example, I try and include something that hints to activities going on there, and the place - price plaques with examples of the language, and the likes as a part of the shot. As long as there's something drawing the eye within the frame to the primary object, I can have parts of other things building up a kind of patchwork of background information. About Heidi's pineapple shot: I love that bowl, because it has an irregular shape. The counterpoint between the colorfields in the created landscape, which are extreme in their artifice with the color and low horizon line, contrast beautifully with the organic irregularity of the bowl. That shot seems to be about that bowl. I'm not sure if the horizon line being so low sits well with me, I'd put it at least 1/3 up from the bottom, unless heidi was composing it to include some type above it on the background - like this. (just an example, done very badly with the "paint" program) Goodnight!

Hey thanks, ninadora!

Merci, madame. Your pictures are most delicious too! I am now enjoying my 10cl of this excellent northern Cote du Rhone - it is a 1999 Sainte Epine Saint Joseph made by the DELAS brothers, and I will recount to you tonights journey to dinner. It began with: A bunch of basil 85 grams whole wheat hard semolina 40 grams wheat flour T250 1/2 t. pepper a green pepper a couple of tomatoes a small eggplant an onion 3 small cloves garlic parsley and (not pictured) 1/2 t. fine sea salt the juice of 1/2 lemon 3 french bay leaves a cube of no salt vegetable boullion paste (ingredients: yeast extract, vegtable oil, veggies, spices and spice extracts, parsley. - the yeast gives it a distinct flavor.) 5 grams minced sorrel leaves (I keep it frozen) After washing the basil and parsley and plucking the leaves from their stems, I put them in the blender with the lemon juice and enough water to puree them. I strained this, preserving the liquid for use in the sauce, and measured 1/3 cup very wet pureed basil and parsley leaves. The flours, salt and pepper were pulsed in the moulinex with the dough paddle to mix, and then I added the wet leaf puree (consistency of a smoothie), and proceeded to make the dough as with the whole wheat pasta dough above. The dough came together slightly less rapidly than with plain water. The dough was covered and set to rest in the frigo. In a sauce pan, heat 2 t. regular vegetable oil, and add the vegetable boullion. The paste begin to brown and soften, and stick to the bottom of the pan, slightly caramelizing in a nutty kind of way. Add the minced garlic and scrape the pan for a couple of minutes, watching it and smelling it begin to deliciously take on a singed aspect. To use all of the last bits of basil in the blender, add water until you have about 1.5 cups, and swish it around in the blender to catch all the basil. Add this all at once to the sizzling boullion and garlic, and it will deglaze the pan. bring to a boil, add the bay leaves, and reduce this while you start another saucepan. Mince the onion, pepper, tomatoes, eggplant, and saute them in the second saucepan with a pinch of salt until they begin release their juice, add the sorrel, and continue until that juice begins to evaporate, about 5 minutes. Once they begin to need more juice, add the contents of the first saucepan, removing the bay leaves. Let his simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes, cover, and remove from heat. Put a large pot of water and 1T. sea salt on to boil. Cut the dough into 4 parts and proceed as for the whole wheat pasta earlier in the thread, and cut into rough rectangular noodle shapes. When you have all of the noodles cut, add them to the rolling boiling water, and let em boil for about 3 minutes. At the same time, put some sauce on two plates. Add a little bit more sauce, lightly toss, and serve. I can positively say it was the best pasta I have ever had.

It's funny that Paul should mention art and cooking. I consider studio work (sculpture for instance) an activity that definitely requires uninterrupted concentration during certain key stages, and many aspects of cooking that corresponds to that type of activity is the planning, the surveying, when I may visualize my process and create a schedule in my mind of the preparations I plan to complete. At that time, I need to concentrate. When I am completing a task in the studio such as mixing plaster, constructing a frame in the woodshop, etc., preparing something for the foundry, where the decision has already been made, I don't mind having a person around to talk to. In short, many of the conceptual activities that take place in cooking have taken place before I even reach the kitchen, just as many of the creative activities that take place in the process of creating art have taken place outside the studio. There are many elements to cooking that are very similar to art processes, which inevitably entails the execution of a concept, thus task oriented. I think that within the process of task completion there may be a certain degree of creativity that comes from a basic and instinctive part of my consciousness, and is not hindered by other activities like conversation going on, it acts in parallel with whatever I'm doing. Making decisions about seasoning, a split second change of heart about how I plan to present a dish (which happens a whole lot) can happen when I am in the middle of a conversation with someone, no problem. However, if a person is a silent spectator and I can sense that their gears are churning, that they may be trying to place some order to the activity, or that they may be unnecesarily mysticising the events taking place, it bothers me. Writing for me falls outside of this category because it requires abstract visualization from beginning to end, and I can't have interruptions. I can listen to music but it has to be techno or music without words. Don't know why. It's a very solitary activity.

Paul's place sounds just like the cure for me. The initial post of this thread initially puzzled me, I just didn't understand, because I love to be engaged in conversation while cooking. Sometimes my husband asks what he can do and I tell him what I want him to do is talk to me about his day while I'm cooking. I often talk with friends or family on the speaker phone for long periods of time when I am in the kitchen, in fact it makes the longer tasks that require patience more pleasurable, and keeps me moving. Sometimes cooking noises interfere - I have considered getting one of those headsets. When I have to do something that requires a fair amount of concentration I let them know I'm going to do it and quickly I just do it, and maybe there's a lull in the conversation. However, it's when someone comes in and looks, and their gaze follows me from one task to the next, but does not talk to me that makes me feel edgy, mainly because I am usually working on two, three, or four things at the same time and my tasks follow one another in an order that from the outside may seem chaotic. It gets surreal. I start seeing things from someone else's perspective and wondering if I should explain what I'm doing. It's rather odd, and that's when I give them a knife, a board and a vegetable and tell them I need something diced to get them out of my hair.

Hey, the effect of Mongo's blog is rippling the world over. Here's the story in Lyon, France. (click) And apparently they have invented a way of entering into the mind of the blogger - (click)

If you haven't had the chance yet, please do click through and read Pim's essay about her visit to Hermes. It's really a pleasure to read.

This might take some time. But it's not impossible.